The
other day I was driving to town in my old ranch truck to get feed, when
the truck
quit.It seemed to
be running fine when
I left the house, but after a few miles it seemed like it was
struggling
to get
up the hills.Then
it started slowing
down even though I had my foot almost on the floor.When I pulled over and pushed in the clutch,
the engine quit and would not crank over.When I opened the hood, it was like I had stuck my
head in an oven.I
let it cool while I looked things over and
noticed a vacuum line off of the intake manifold.Then is when I also noticed a split in the upper
radiator hose.Sure
enough, the radiator
was empty.I got a
lift from a neighbor
back to the house and got some water and duct tape.By the time I got back to the truck, the
engine had cooled down, so I taped up the split hose, filled the
radiator with
water, and
put the vacuum hose back on the fitting.I left the radiator cap loose, so the tape wouldn’t
get blown off from
the pressure in the radiator.The
truck
cranked over slow, but it did start, so I headed into town to get the
feed and a
radiator hose.A
few more miles down the
road was a stop sign at the highway.As
I was shifting into second gear after getting on the highway, the truck
started
missing bad.When I
looked into the rear
view mirror I couldn’t see a thing for the cloud of smoke.I turned around and made
it home, but it was
missing and smoking all the way.The
truck is a 1982 Ford pickup with a six-cylinder engine and a
three-speed
manual
transmission.I
know I got the engine
too hot, but why is it missing, and why is it putting out all of that
smoke?

North
of Town Rancher

Dear
North of Town;

Yep,
you got it too hot.It
almost sounds like
you got the piston rings so hot that they lost their tension and are
letting
engine oil get past them and into the combustion chamber.Once there, the oil would
try to burn and put
a lot of smoke out the tail pipe.However,
there is something else going on, too.With the vacuum hose off, there was some extra air
getting into the fuel
and air mixture in the intake manifold, and one or more cylinders was
getting a
mixture that was too lean.That
could
cause things to run hotter too.It
was
like a cutting torch--get things hot, add more air, and you
can
cut
steel or melt aluminum.Combine
that
with an overheating engine, and I would bet that there is a hole in at
least one--and maybe more--of the pistons.

How
do you find out how bad things are?By
running a compression check on all of the cylinders.A compression tester is like a tire pressure
gauge.It will hold
a pressure reading
until you read it and reset it.A
compression gauge can be purchased for less than $20 at most auto-parts
stores
or in the automotive department of most big chain stores like Wal-Mart
or
Tractor Supply.To
use it, remove all of the spark plugs from the engine, and
then check each
cylinder one at
a time.Hold or
screw in the gauge in a
spark plug hole and crank the engine over three times.Write down the gauge reading, zero the gauge,
and check the other cylinders the same way--one at a time.All cylinders should read
at least 100 psi,
and they should all be within 10 psi of each other.Low readings of say 50 psi on all cylinders,
probably mean that the rings have gotten way too hot, and the smoke is
coming
from the oil getting past the piston rings, causing smoke out of the
tailpipe.I suspect
what you will find is that one or more
of the readings will be a lot lower--like 20 psi or less.That would tell you that
there is a good
sized hole somewhere.It
could be a
burned valve, but more than likely it is a hole in the piston.

Can
it be saved?Maybe,
if the block and
head are not cracked from the overheating, but it is going to take an
engine
overhaul plus a bunch of new parts.That
means expensive--in the $2,000 to $3,000 range.Finding a junkyard engine out of a wreck would be a
little cheaper.Just
do not get a later model fuel injected
engine as the heads are NOT the same, and adapting the electronic fuel
injection
would be even more expensive than an engine rebuild--unless you do all
of the
computer wiring and adapting yourself.

My
recommendation would be to go shopping for a new old ranch truck as the
$2,000+
spent on an overhaul would probably find you a decent new old truck.